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(geography) A sea that lies between Europe, Asia Minor, and Africa and is completely landlocked except for the Strait of Gibraltar, the Bosporus, and the Suez Canal; total water area is 965,000 square miles (2,501,000 square kilometers).
An inland sea surrounded by Europe, Asia, Asia Minor, the Near East, and Africa. It connects with the Atlantic Ocean through the Strait of Gibraltar; with the Black Sea through the Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmara, and the Bosporus; and with the Red Sea through the Suez Canal.
The Mediterranean Sea lies between Europe, Asia Minor, and Africa. It is completely landlocked except for the Strait of Gibraltar, the Bosporus, and the Suez Canal. The Mediterranean is conveniently divided into an eastern basin and a western basin, which are joined by the Strait of Sicily and the Strait of Messina.
The total water area of the Mediterranean is 965,900 mi2 (2,501,000 km2), and its average depth is 5040 ft (1536 m). The greatest depth in the western basin is 12,200 ft (3719 m), in the Tyrrhenian Sea. The eastern basin is deeper, with a greatest depth of 18,140 ft (5530 m) in the Ionian Sea about 34 mi (55 km) off the Greek mainland. The Atlantic tide disappears in the Strait of Gibraltar. The tides of the Mediterranean are predominantly semidiurnal.
For more information on Mediterranean Sea, visit Britannica.com.
Geography
The Mediterranean is c.2,400 mi (3,900 km) long with a maximum width of c.1,000 mi (1,600 km); its greatest depth is c.14,450 ft (4,400 m), off Cape Matapan, Greece. It connects with the Atlantic Ocean through the Strait of Gibraltar; with the Black Sea through the Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmara, and the Bosporus; and with the Red Sea through the Suez Canal. Its chief divisions are the Tyrrhenian, Adriatic, Ionian, and Aegean seas; its chief islands are Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, Crete, Cyprus, Malta, Rhodes, the Dodecanese, the Cyclades, the Sporades, the Balearic Islands, and the Ionian Islands. Shallows (Adventure Bank) between Sicily and Cape Bon, Tunisia, divide the Mediterranean into two main basins.
The sea is of higher salinity than the Atlantic and has little variation in tides. The largest rivers that flow into it are the Po, Rhône, Ebro, and Nile. The shores are chiefly mountainous. Earthquakes and volcanic disturbances are frequent. The region around the sea has a warm, dry climate characterized by abundant sunshine. Strong local winds, such as the hot, dry sirocco from the south and the cold, dry mistral and bora from the north, blow across the sea. Fish (about 400 species), sponges, and corals are plentiful. In addition, oil and natural gas have been found in several sections of the sea. The overuse of the sea's natural and marine resources continues to be a problem.
History
Some of the most ancient civilizations (see Aegean civilization) flourished around the Mediterranean. It was opened as a highway for commerce by merchants trading from Phoenicia. Carthage, Greece, Sicily, and Rome were rivals for dominance of its shores and trade; under the Roman Empire it became virtually a Roman lake and was called Mare Nostrum [our sea]. Later, the Byzantine Empire and the Arabs dominated the Mediterranean. Between the 11th and 14th cent., Italian city trading states such as Genoa, Venice, and Barcelona dominated the region; they struggled with the Ottomans for naval supremacy, particularly in the E Mediterranean. Products of Asia passed to Europe over Mediterranean trade routes until the establishment of a route around the Cape of Good Hope (late 15th cent.).
With the opening of the Suez Canal (1869) the Mediterranean resumed its importance as a link on the route to the East. The development of the northern regions of Africa and of oil fields in the Middle East has increased its trade. Its importance as a trade link and as a route for attacks on Europe resulted in European rivalry for control of its coasts and islands and led to campaigns in the region during both world wars. Since World War II the Mediterranean region has been of strategic importance to both the United States and, until its dissolution, the Soviet Union. In 1995 countries bordering the Mediterranean signed a pact agreeing to protect it by eliminating toxic waste disposal there over a 10-year period.
Bibliography
See E. D. Bradford, Mediterranean, Portrait of a Sea (1971); J. E. Swain, The Struggle for the Control of the Mediterranean Prior to 1848 (1973); L. S. Kaplan and R. W. Clawson, ed., NATO and the Mediterranean (1984); M. Miloradov, ed., Pollution of the Mediterranean Sea (1987); M. Grant, The Ancient Mediterranean (1988).
Sea between Europe, Africa, and Asia.
The Mediterranean Sea is about 2,400 miles long, covers an area of about 965,000 square miles, and is ringed by a winding coastline of peninsulas and mountains. The sea opens to the Atlantic Ocean through the Strait of Gibraltar, to the Black Sea through the Dardanelles, and to the Red Sea through the Suez Canal.
Since antiquity, the Mediterranean has been an important waterway for trade and has fostered great civilizations on its shores. The sea's strategic significance declined after the sixteenth century as trade routes shifted to the Atlantic but increased again with the 1869 opening of the Suez Canal and its subsequent use for oil shipping. The 1995 Declaration of Barcelona marked the beginning of political and economic collaboration between the European Union and countries on all shores of the Mediterranean.
The pollution of the sea remains a cause of concern for governments in the region, as reflected in the signing of two protocols for the protection of the Mediterranean Sea against pollution in 1980 and 1982. Land-based sources of pollution account for 80 percent of the total pollution. Participant countries in the convention for the protection of the Mediterranean Sea have made periodic commitments to reducing pollution, with mixed results.
Bibliography
Braudel, Fernand. The Mediterranean and the MediterraneanWorld in the Age of Philip II, translated by Siân Reynolds. New York: Harper and Row, 1972.
Cerutti, Furio, and Ragionieri, Rodolfo, eds. Identities andConflicts: The Mediterranean. New York: Palgrave, 2001.
McNeill, J. R. The Mountains of the Mediterranean World: An Environmental History. New York and Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
— ELIZABETH THOMPSON
UPDATED BY VANESA CASANOVA-FERNANDEZ
The Mediterranean is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean
almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Europe, on the south by Africa, and on the east by Asia. It covers an approximate area of
It was the most important route for merchants and travelers of ancient times, allowing for trade and cultural exchange between emergent peoples of the region — the Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Semitic, Persian, Phoenician, Carthaginian, Greek, Levantine, and Roman cultures. The history of the Mediterranean is crucial to understanding the origins and development of many modern societies.
The term Mediterranean derives from the Latin mediterraneus, "inland" (medius, "middle" + terra, "land, earth"). To the ancient Romans, the Mediterranean was the center of the earth as they knew it.
The Mediterranean Sea has been known by a number of alternative names throughout human history. It was, for example, commonly called Mare Nostrum (Latin, "Our Sea") and occasionally Mare Internum by the Romans (Sallust, Jug. 17). The Greeks name it Mesogeios (Μεσόγειος), meaning "inland, interior" (μεσο, "middle" + γαιος, "land, earth")[1]. In the Old Testament, on the west coast of the Holy Land, and therefore behind a person facing the east, it is called the "Hinder Sea", sometimes translated as "Western Sea", (Deut. 11:24; Joel 2:20), and also the "Sea of the Philistines" (Exod. 22:81), because that people occupied a large portion of its shores near the Israelites. Mostly, however, it was the "Great Sea" (Num. 34:6,7; Josh. 1:4, 9:1, 15:47; Ezek. 47:10,15,20), or simply "The Sea" (1 Kings 5:9; comp. 1 Macc. 14:34, 15:11). In Hebrew, it is called HaYam HaTikhon (הַיָּם הַתִּיכוֹן), "the middle sea", a literal adaptation of the German equivalent Mittelmeer. In Turkish, it is Akdeniz, "the white sea". In Arabic, it is Al-Baħr Al-Abyad Al-Muttawasit (البحر الأبيض المتوسط), "the middle white sea".
As a sea around which some of the most ancient human civilizations were arranged, it has had a major influence on the history and ways of life of these cultures. It provided a way of trade, colonization and war, and was the basis of life (via fishing and the gathering of other seafood) for numerous communities throughout the ages.
The combination of similar-shared climate, geology and access to a common sea has led to numerous historical and cultural connections between the ancient and modern societies around the Mediterranean.
The Mediterranean Sea is connected to the Atlantic Ocean by the Strait of Gibraltar on the west and to the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea, by the Dardanelles and the Bosporus respectively, on the east. The Sea of Marmara is often considered a part of the Mediterranean Sea, whereas the Black Sea is generally not. The man-made Suez Canal in the southeast connects the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea.
Large islands in the Mediterranean include Cyprus,
Crete, Euboea, Rhodes,
Lesbos, Chios,
The Mediterranean climate is generally one of wet winters and hot, dry summers. Crops of the region include olives, grapes, oranges, tangerines, and cork.
Being nearly landlocked affects the Mediterranean Sea's properties; for instance, tides are very limited as a result of the narrow connection with the Atlantic Ocean. The Mediterranean is characterized and immediately recognized by its imposing deep blue color, especially around the Greek and Croatian islands.
Evaporation greatly exceeds precipitation and river runoff in the Mediterranean, a fact that is central to the water circulation within the basin.[2] Evaporation is especially high in its eastern half, causing the water level to decrease and salinity to increase eastward.[3] This pressure gradient pushes relatively cool, low-salinity water from the Atlantic across the basin; it warms and becomes saltier as it travels east, then sinks in the region of the Levant and circulates westward, to spill over the Strait of Gibraltar.[4] Thus, seawater flow is eastward in the Strait's surface waters, and westward below; once in the open ocean, this chemically-distinct "Mediterranean Intermediate Water" can persist thousands of kilometers away from its source.[5]
Hot summers, warm winters, summer drought, winter rain.
Twenty-one modern states have a coastline on the Mediterranean Sea. They are:
Several other territories also border the Mediterranean Sea (from west to east):
Macedonia, Portugal, San Marino, Serbia, and the Vatican City, although they do not border the sea, are often considered Mediterranean countries in a wider sense due to their Mediterranean climate, fauna and flora, and their cultural affinity with other Mediterranean countries.
The Mediterranean Sea is sub-divided into a number of smaller seas, each with their own designation (from west to east):
Many of these smaller seas feature in local myth and folklore and derive their names from these associations. In addition to the seas, a number of gulfs and straits are also recognised:
The geology of the Mediterranean is complex, involving the break-up and then collision of the African and Eurasian plates and the Messinian Salinity Crisis in the late Miocene when the Mediterranean dried up.
The Mediterranean Sea has an average depth of metres ( ft) and the deepest recorded point is 5,267 meters (about 3.27 miles) in the Calypso Deep in the Ionian Sea. The coastline extends for kilometres ( mi). A shallow submarine ridge (the Strait of Sicily) between the island of Sicily and the coast of Tunisia divides the sea in two main subregions (which in turn are divided into subdivisions), the Western Mediterranean and the Eastern Mediterranean. The Western Mediterranean covers an area of about 0.85 million km² (0.33 million sq mi) and the Eastern Mediterranean about 1.65 million km² (0.64 million sq mi).
The geodynamic evolution of the Mediterranean Sea was provided by the convergence of European and African plates. This process was driven by the differential spreading along the Atlantic ridge, which led to the closure of the Tethys Ocean and eventually to the Alpine orogenesis. However, the Mediterranean also hosts wide extensional basins and migrating tectonic arcs, in response to its land-locked configuration.
Eastern Mediterranean: in middle Miocene times, the collision between the Arabian microplate and Eurasia led to the separation between the Tethys and the Indian Oceans. This process determined profound changes in the oceanic circulation patterns, which shifted global climates towards colder conditions. The Hellenic Arc, which has a land-locked configuration, underwent a widespread extension for the last 20 Myr due to a slab roll-back process. In addition, the Hellenic Arc experienced a rapid rotation phase during the Pleistocene, with a counterclockwise component in its eastern portion and a clockwise trend in the western segment.
Central Mediterranean: the opening of small oceanic basins of the central Mediterranean follows a trench migration and back-arc opening process that occurred during the last 30 Myr. This phase was characterized by the counterclockwise rotation of the Corsica-Sardinia block, which lasted until the Langhian (ca.16 Ma), and was in turn followed by a slab detachment along the northern African margin. Subsequently, a shift of this active extentional deformation led to the opening of the Tyrrenian basin.
Western Mediterranean: Since Mesozoic to Tertiary times, during convergence between Africa and Iberia, it developed the Betic-Rif mountain belts. Tectonic models for its evolution include: rapid motion of Alboran microplate, subduction zone and radial extentional collapse caused by convective removal of lithosferic mantle. The development of these intramontane Betic and Rif basins led to the onset of two marine gateways which were progressively closed during the late Miocene by an interplay of tectonic and glacio-eustatic processes.
Because of its peculiar latitudinal position and its land-locked configuration, the Mediterranean is especially sensitive to astronomically induced climatic variations, which are well documented in its sedimentary record. Since the Mediterranean is involved in the deposition of eolian dust from the Sahara during dry periods, whereas riverine detrital input prevails during wet ones, the Mediterranean marine sapropel-bearing sequences provide high-resolution climatic information. These data have been employed in reconstructing astronomically calibrated time scales for the last 9 Ma of the earth's history. Furthermore, the exceptional accuracy of these paleoclimatic records improved our knowledge of the earth's orbital variations in the past.
Its semi-enclosed configuration makes the oceanic gateways critical in controlling circulation and environmental evolution in the Mediterranean Sea. Water circulation patterns are driven by a number of interactive factors, such as climate and bathymetry, which can lead to precipitation of evaporites. During late Miocene times, a so-called "Messinian Salinity Crisis" (MSC hereafter) occurred, which was triggered by the closure of the Atlantic gateway. Evaporites accumulated in the Red Sea Basin (late Miocene), in the Carpatian foredeep (middle Miocene) and in the whole Mediterranean area (Messinian). An accurate age estimate of the MSC—5.96 Ma—has recently been astronomically achieved; furthermore, this event seems to have occurred synchronously. The beginning of the MSC is supposed to have been of tectonic origin; however, an astronomical control (eccentricity) might also have been involved. In the Mediterranean basin, diatomites are regularly found underneath the evaporitic deposits, thus suggesting (albeit not clearly so far) a connection between their geneses. The present-day Atlantic gateway, i.e. the Strait of Gibraltar, finds its origin in the early Pliocene. However, two other connections between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea existed in the past: the Betic Corridor (southern Spain) and the Rifian Corridor (northern Morocco). The former closed during Tortonian times, thus providing a "Tortonian Salinity Crisis" well before the MSC; the latter closed about 6 Ma, allowing exchanges in the mammal fauna between Africa and Europe. Nowadays, evaporation is more relevant than the water yield supplied by riverine water and precipitation, so that salinity in the Mediterranean is higher than in the Atlantic. These conditions result in the outflow of warm saline Mediterranean deep water across Gibraltar, which is in turn counterbalanced by an inflow of a less saline surface current of cold oceanic water.
In the last few centuries, mankind has done much to alter Mediterranean geology. Structures have been built all along the coastlines, exacerbating and rerouting erosional patterns. Many pollution-producing boats travel the sea that unbalance the natural chemical ratios of the region. Beaches have been mismanaged, and the overuse of the sea's natural and marine resources continues to be a problem. This misuse speeds along and/or confounds natural processes. The actual geography has also been altered by the building of dams and canals.
The Mediterranean was once thought to be the remnant of the Tethys Ocean. It is now known to be a structurally younger ocean basin known as Neotethys. Neotethys formed during the Late Triassic and Early Jurassic rifting of the African and Eurasian plates.
As a result of the drying of the sea during the Messinian Salinity Crisis[6], the marine biota of the Mediterranean are derived primarily from the Atlantic Ocean. The North Atlantic is considerably colder and more nutrient-rich than the Mediterranean, and the marine life of the Mediterranean has had to adapt to its differing conditions in the five million years since the basin was reflooded.
The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 created the first salt-water passage between the Mediterranean and Red Seas. The Red Sea is higher than the Eastern Mediterranean, so the canal serves as a tidal strait that pours Red Sea water into the Mediterranean. The Bitter Lakes, which are hypersaline natural lakes that form part of the canal, blocked the migration of Red Sea species into the Mediterranean for many decades, but as the salinity of the lakes gradually equalized with that of the Red Sea, the barrier to migration was removed, and plants and animals from the Red Sea have begun to colonize the Eastern Mediterranean. The Red Sea is generally saltier and more nutrient-poor than the Atlantic, so the Red Sea species have advantages over Atlantic species in the salty and nutrient-poor Eastern Mediterranean. Accordingly, Red Sea species invade the Mediterranean biota, and not vice versa; this phenomenon is known as the Lessepsian migration (after Ferdinand de Lesseps, the French engineer) or Erythrean invasion. The construction of the Aswan High Dam across the Nile River in the 1960s reduced the inflow of freshwater and nutrient-rich silt from the Nile into the Eastern Mediterranean, making conditions there even more like the Red Sea and worsening the impact of the invasive species.
Invasive species originating from the Red Sea and introduced into the Mediterranean by the construction of the canal have become a major component of the Mediterranean ecosystem and have serious impacts on the Mediterranean ecology, endangering many local and endemic Mediterranean species. Up to this day, about 300 species native to the Red Sea have already been identified in the Mediterranean Sea, and there are probably others yet unidentified. In recent years, the Egyptian government's announcement of its intentions to deepen and widen the canal have raised concerns from marine biologists, fearing that such an act will only worsen the invasion of Red Sea species into the Mediterranean, facilitating the crossing of the canal for yet additional species[7].
Pollution in this region has been extremely high in the past couple years. In just one year, 1,000,000 tons of sewage has been dumped directly into the Mediterranean Sea.[citation needed] Also, many marine species, such as the Mediterranean Monk Seal, have been almost wiped out because of the pollution there. The Monk Seal has been placed as one of the top ten endangered species in the world.[citation needed]Global warming could trigger hurricanes over the Mediterranean Sea.[8]
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frp:Mar Mèditèrranêbe-x-old:Міжземнае мораlij:Mâ Mediterraneonds-nl:Middellaanse Zeenrm:Mé du Mitanvls:Middellandsche Zêe
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
Dansk (Danish)
n. - Middelhavet
Deutsch (German)
n. - Mittelmeer, Mittelländisches Meer
עברית (Hebrew)
n. - הים התיכון
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